Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand/Chapter 12
GOVERNORS’ VISITS.
CHAPTER XII.
IR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B., was the first Governor of New Zealand who paid the West Coast a visit. On Thursday, the 24th of January 1867, His Excellency reached Hokitika, having made the journey overland from Christchurch on that and the previous day. These being the palmiest times of the coast, you may be sure the Governor, who was very popular, received a most hearty welcome at all the places he visited. A procession, consisting of the Hokitika Corporation, the Masonic body, the Oddfellows, the Fire Brigade, and others, was formed, and, preceded by a band of music, met His Excellency at the outskirts of the town. On his arrival at the first triumphal arch he was received with loud cheers from an immense concourse of people. He was introduced by His Honour the Superintendent of Canterbury, the late Mr Moorhouse, to the first Mayor of the town, Mr Bonar, and the members of the Corporation. His progress through the town was a complete ovation. At all the principal points on his route he was received with acclamations, and having passed under six triumphal arches, entered Mr Sale’s residence shortly before seven o’clock. In the evening the streets were brilliantly illuminated, and His Excellency, notwithstanding the fatigue which he had gone through, took a walk through the town on foot, accompanied by Mr Justice Gresson, and wherever he was recognised, was loudly cheered. Next day His Excellency entered the Supreme Court House, which had been specially fitted up for the occasion, to receive addresses and hold a levee. At that time, besides His Excellency, there were assembled in the Court House, the Rev. F. Thatcher, Major Grey, Captain Home, the Hon. Major Richardson, His Honour the Superintendent of Canterbury, His Honour Mr Justice Gresson, T. S. Duncan, Esq.; G. S. Sale, Esq.; Archdeacon Harper, His Worship the Mayor, and others. The Town Clerk, the late Mr John Lazar, presented an address of welcome. The address set forth, among other things, that only two years previous, the town was “an unknown and barren waste,” but now it has risen to be “an opulent, thriving, and commercial town.” Sir George Grey, in acknowledging the address, said his pleasure upon the occasion had been heightened by the remembrance of how little was known of this part of New Zealand but a few years since. He proceeded to say:—“It was then regarded as a dreary locality, difficult of access, hardly producing the necessaries of life, and as not likely to be inhabited by the European race until after a lapse of a long interval of time. Now I find around me a thriving and populous town, which has suddenly sprung into existence, an energetic population, already cultivating the soil, which gives unmistakable proofs of its great fertility; an Alpine mountain chain, pierced by a great road, and signs of progress and prosperity upon every side.” Addresses were presented by the Masons, the Oddfellows, and the legal profession. In the evening the town was illuminated in every direction, some very effective transparencies being displayed in Revell Street. I recollect one characteristic transparency at Charley Williams’s. It was that of a digger with a large swag, supporting burdens in the shape of gold duty, taxes, customs duties, and warden’s court fees. This attracted the attention of many passers. The whole town was a blaze of light, though candles and kerosene were the only means of lighting then available. A grand banquet was given to His Excellency the following evening, at the Prince of Wales Opera House. At the upper end of the theatre jets of gas and Chinese lanterns cast a brilliant light on the distinguished guest and his suite, and oil lamps all round lit up the remainder of the banqueting hall. The whole house was extravagantly decorated. Mr Bonar, Mayor, occupied the chair; all the guests before mentioned were present, and there was a large number of ladies and gentlemen in the dress circle. A most enthusiastic greeting was given His Excellency. Next day he visited the Kanieri and Waimea diggings, and proceeded to Greymouth by steamer “Bruce,” where he visited the Brunner coal mine, travelling up on board a barge. On his return His Excellency held a levee, and a banquet was also held in the evening. The whole party returned overland to Christchurch by special coach, after remaining on the coast about a week. This was the first recognition of “The Golden Coast” by a governing representative of Her Majesty.
Ever since that time the name of Sir George Grey has been popular with the bulk of the inhabitants on the coast. In later years, when Premier of the Colony, he again paid the several districts a visit, inquiring into the wants and requirements of the people. He held a monster public meeting at the Theatre, and was enthusiastically received.
Before taking leave of Sir George Grey in connection with the coast, I may note that in his work entitled “Polynesian Mythology, and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race,” some additional records are given to those contained in my first chapter, respecting the first of the native race who landed on these shores. He gives a brief account of the landing of Ngahue, the native chief, at Arahura, confirmatory, in many particulars, of what has here been related from other sources.
The next Governor who visited these parts was Sir George F. Bowen, K.G.C.M.G. Early in February 1871, the West Coast was promised a visit from His Excellency the Governor. But circumstances over which, in common with ordinary mortals, he had no control, prevented the landing of the Vice-Regal party, in which so much interest was properly taken by the popular representatives in the chief towns in Westland. He was compelled, through stress of weather, to pass the ports of Westport, Greymouth, and Hokitika, in the s.s. “Clio,” and first visited the Sounds. On the 12th of April of the same year he returned to Westland by the route which was calculated to gratify his somewhat poetic tastes—the trans-Alpine track, or, as it is now commonly and more appropriately called, the Christchurch Road. I will first describe the reception he met with in Hokitika, and will thereafter furnish his own description of the Sounds, as delivered by him in an address to the New Zealand Institute.
The public demonstrations on this occasion fell far short of those which were organised on the occasion of the visit of Sir George Grey. The population of the town was not, either numerically or in respect to its wealth or its extravagance, what it was in 1867. The journey overland was made in one of Cobb & Co.’s large coaches, drawn by six handsome horses, and driven by one of the proprietors, Mr Burton. His Excellency’s fellow-passengers on the road were his aide-de-camp, Captain Pitt, and Mr Rolleston, Superintendent of Canterbury. A large procession met His Excellency at the north end of Revell Street, headed by the Hokitika, Ross, and Stafford brass bands. Three hearty cheers were given for His Excellency, who addressed the assemblage, and was afterwards escorted to Government House. In the evening the town was illuminated. The building best illuminated was the Bank of New Zealand. In front of these premises there was a large transparency representing a New Zealand scene, with a Maori in the foreground. There were several others bearing inscriptions, “Success to Mining,” “Prosperity to New Zealand,” “Welcome, Sir George,” and “Advance, Westland.” At the Royal Mail Hotel there was a representation of Neptune as the centre figure, round which were inscribed the words, “Welcome, Sir George Bowen.” Mr Holmes, Revell Street, exhibited a transparency bearing the words “Advance, Westland,” and another, typical of Britannia. Red and blue fire and rockets were the order of the night. Next day the Governor held a levee, visited several parts of the town and principal public buildings, attended the races, and patronised a bazaar in aid of the Wesleyan Church. Before starting for the races, he was presented with addresses from the several public bodies. The address from the Borough Council was signed by the Mayor (Mr Higgin) and the members of the Council. In acknowledging this address, the Governor, amongst other things, pointed to the gratifying fact, apparent from the official statistics, that this single county of New Zealand, in the seventh year of its settlement, had already a larger revenue and trade than many entire colonies, such as Antigua, Bermuda, and Barbadoes, which had been colonised for over two hundred years. It is also worthy of mention that His Excellency received one other address — a poet’s welcome, or, as it was printed, “The Poet's Welcome”—a politico-poetic production by Mr John Cross, the recognised Poet Laureate of Westland. The afternoon was spent by His Excellency on the grand stand of the race-course. The weather was delightful, the crowd numerous, refreshments abundant, and the racing good. Next day His Excellency visited the Kanieri district, and attended a banquet and ball in the Town Hall, Hokitika, in the evening. Subsequently he visited Totara, Stafford, Waimea, and Greymouth, from whence he took his departure by the steamer “Luna.” I was nearly omitting to mention that Mr Lahman (now the Hon. H. H. Lahman, M.L.C.) was County Chairman during the time of Sir George Bowen’s visit, and accompanied His Excellency to the several districts within the county. At Greymouth, Mr E. Wickes did the honours in his capacity of Mayor of the Borough. Four hundred children and an immense concourse of adults met His Excellency at the town boundary, and the citizens’ ball in the evening was an immense success. The visit throughout was of the most hearty and loyal nature, and during his short stay His Excellency elicited everywhere a strong feeling of popular friendship. Much more might be written of the doings in the inland towns, of addresses presented, of claims and engines and water-races christened, and of luncheon speeches, but I prefer giving place to His Excellency’s interesting narrative of his adventures at the Sounds, to which I have, in an earlier part of this chapter, made reference.
After returning from the coast, at the next annual meeting of the New Zealand Institute, Sir George Bowen, as President, delivered the following address, which gives a minute and graphic description of his visit to the West Coast Sounds:—“ I now proceed to give a short sketch of my visit during the months of February and March, in the present year, to the magnificent, but hitherto little known, Sounds on the South-West Coast of the Middle Island, whither Commodore Stirling conveyed me in H.M.S. ‘Clio.’ Dr Hector accompanied us; and had it not been for the disaster which befel us in Bligh Sound, we expected to have been enabled to collect much practical information respecting that part of the Colony, and also to furnish fresh and valuable notices to the Geographical, Geological, and Zoological Societies of London. It may here be mentioned that the best general descriptions of the South-West Coast of the Middle Island which have hitherto been published will be found in the New Zealand Pilot, compiled chiefly by an honorary member of our Institute, Admiral Richards, F.R.S., the present Hydrographer to the Admiralty; and in a paper by Dr Hector, printed in the thirty-fourth volume (for 1864) of the Journals of the Royal Geographical Society. The notes which I shall now read to you were written while the ‘Clio’ lay disabled in Bligh Sound, and have been partly embodied in my despatches to the Imperial Government.
“We left Wellington on the 4th of last February, but the ‘Clio’ was much delayed at first by baffling winds, and afterwards by a strong contrary gale, with heavy sea. We reached Milford Sound on the 11th, and remained there, examining that extraordinary inlet, until the 17th February.
“Admiral Richards has observed that the only harbours of shelter for large ships along the West Coast of the Middle Island of New Zealand (a distance of five hundred miles) are the thirteen sounds or inlets which penetrate its south-western shore between the parallels of 44 and 46 degrees south latitude, including a space of little more than one hundred miles. They are, counting from the north, and according to the names given chiefly by the adventurous whalers, who alone have frequented these inhospitable regions, as follows:—1. Milford Sound; 2. Bligh Sound; 3. George Sound; 4. Caswell Sound; 5. Charles Sound; 6. Nancy Sound; 7. Thomson Sound; 8. Doubtful Sound; 9. Daggs Sound; 10. Breaksea Sound; 11. Dusky Sound; 12. Chalky Sound; 13. Preservation Inlet. As I wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, these arms of the great southern ocean, cleaving their way through the massive sea wall of steep and rugged clifis, reach far into the wild solitudes of the lofty mountains, which form the cordillera, or ‘dividing range’ of the Middle Island. These mountains attain their highest elevation, further north, in Mount Cook, a snowy peak rising 13,200 feet above the sea-level, and visible in clear weather at a distance of more than a hundred miles to the mariner approaching New Zealand; thus forming a noble monument of the illustrious navigator who first recommended the planting of an English settlement in this country. To quote Admiral Richards:—‘A view of the surrounding country from the summit of one of the mountains bordering the coast, of from 4000 to 5000 ft. in elevation, is perhaps one of the most grand and magnificent spectacles it is possible to imagine, and standing on such an elevation rising over the south side of Caswell Sound, Cook’s description of this region was forcibly called to mind. A prospect more rude and craggy is rarely to be met with, for inland appeared nothing but the summits of mountains of a stupendous height, and consisting of rocks that are totally bare and naked, except where they are covered with snow.’ We could only compare the scene around us as far as the eye could reach, north to Milford Sound, south to Dusky Bay, and eastward inland for a distance of sixty miles, to a vast sea of mountains of every possible variety of shape and ruggedness; the clouds and mist floated far beneath us, and the harbour appeared no more than an insignificant stream. The prospect was most bewildering, and even to a practised eye, the possibility of recognising any particular mountain as a point of the survey from a future station, seemed almost hopeless. The following extract from Dr Hector’s account of Milford Sound shows the probable mode of its formation:—‘Three miles from the entrance of the Sound it becomes contracted to the width of half-a-mile, and its sides rise perpendicularly from the water’s edge sometimes for 2000 ft., and then slope at a high angle to the peaks that are covered with perpetual snow. The scenery is quite equal to the finest that can be enjoyed by the most difficult and toilsome journey into the Alps of the interior; and the effect is greatly enhanced, as well as the access made more easy by the incursion of the sea, as it were, into the alpine solitudes. The sea, in fact, now occupies a chasm that was in past ages ploughed by an immense glacier; and it is through the natural progress of events by which the mountain mass has been reduced in altitude, that the ice stream has been replaced by the waters of the ocean. The evidence of this change may be seen at a glance. The lateral valleys join the main one at various elevations, but are all sharply cut off by the precipitous wall of the sound, the erosion of which was, no doubt, continued by a great central glacier long after the subordinate and tributary glaciers had ceased to exist. The precipices exhibit the marks of ice-action with great distinctness, and descend quite abruptly to a depth of 800 to 1200 ft. below the water-level. Towards its head the sound becomes more expanded, and receives several large valleys that preserve the same character, but radiate in different directions into the highest ranges. At the time that these valleys were filled with glaciers, a great ice lake must have existed in the upper and expanded portion of the sound, from which the only outlet would be through the chasm which forms its lower part.’
“On account of the great depth of water in these inlets, and of the sudden storms of wind rushing down from the mountains above, vessels are generally obliged to moor to trees or pinnacles of rock, whenever they reach a cove in which an anchor can be dropped. Accordingly, while we were in Milford Sound, the ‘Clio’ lay at anchor in Harrison’s Cove, only a few yards from the shore, and moored head and stern to huge trunks of trees. Immediately above rose Pembroke Peak to the height of nearly 7000 ft., covered with perpetual snow, and with a glacier reaching down to within 2000 ft. of the sea. The lower slopes of the mountains around are covered with fine trees, and with the luxuriant and evergreen foliage of the trees, and the other beautiful undergrowth of the New Zealand forests. Two permanent waterfalls, one 700 and the other 540 ft. in height, add picturesque beauty to the gloomy and desolate grandeur of the upper part of Milford Sound. During a storm of wind and rain, mingled with snow and sleet, which, though it was the middle of summer, raged during three days of our stay, avalanches were often heard thundering down, with a roar as of distant artillery, from the snow-fields above; while a multitude of foaming cascades poured over the face of the lower precipices, hurling with them, into the sea, masses of rock and trunks of trees. On the other hand, nothing could exceed the charm of the few fine days which we enjoyed during our voyage. In his work, entitled ‘Greater Britain’ (Part 11, chap. ii.), Sir Charles Dilke has truly observed ‘that the peculiarity which makes the New Zealand West Coast scenery the most beautiful in the world is that here alone, you can find semi-tropical vegetation growing close up to the eternal snows. The latitudes, and the great moisture of the climate, bring the glaciers very low into the valleys; and cause the growth of palm-like ferns on the ice river’s very edge. The glaciers of Mount Cook are the longest in the world, except those at the sources of the Indus; but close about them have been found tree ferns of 30 and 40 ft. in height. It is not till you enter the mountains that you escape the moisture of the coast, and quit for the scenery of the Alps the scenery of fairy land.’
“Again Sir C. Dilke’s description of the view from Hokitika at sunrise would apply also to the same view from many other points on the West Coast. A hundred miles of the Southern Alps stood out upon a pale blue sky in curves of gloomy white that were just beginning to blush with pink, but ended to the southward in a cone of fire that stood up from the ocean; it was the snow-dome of Mount Cook struck by the rising sun. The evergreen bush, flaming with the crimson rata blooms, hung upon the mountain side, and covered the plains to the very margin of the narrow sands with a dense jungle. It was one of those sights that haunt men for years.
“The neighbourhood of the sea, and the semi-tropical magnificence of the foliage, are features in which the New Zealand Alps excel the highest mountain ranges in Europe. As members of the Alpine Club, of England, have already scaled the peaks of the Caucasus, it is hoped that they will ere long explore the glaciers and summits of Mount Cook, together with the elsewhere unrivalled scenery of the neighbouring fiords. Mount Cook (as has been already said) rises to 13,200 ft. above the sea-level, that is, surpasses all but Mount Blanc and one or two others of the highest of the Alps of Europe.
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“The ‘Clio’ left Milford Sound on the morning of the 17th February, and on the same afternoon struck on her port-bow upon a sunken rock, unnoticed in the existing charts, near the middle of the second reach of Bligh Sound. Had the accident occurred amidships, she would probably have at once gone down, with all on board. As it was, the ship made water so fast through the leak on the port-bow that she was immediately put back, and anchored in Bounty Haven, at the head of Bligh Sound. The pumps kept the water down, while the divers, with two of whom the ‘Clio’ was fortunately furnished, examined, and the carpenters stopped the leak. I was very glad to be of some service in this emergency, by pointing out, from my knowledge of their foliage, the best timber trees in the forests covering the slopes of the mountains around this harbour. A party of seamen and marines was sent on shore to provide sufficient wood for such repairs as enabled the ‘Clio’ to put to sea again in the course of a fortnight. Meanwhile, we were absolutely cut off from all communication with the rest of the world; for the repeated attempts to discover a pass leading directly from the settlements in the Province of Otago to the sounds on its south-western coasts, have hitherto completely failed, owing to the inaccessible character of the intervening forests and mountains. In 1863 Dr Hector, hoping to discover some mode of communication with the inhabited districts on the east of the dividing range, forced his way up the valley of the Cleddaw River, which flows into the head of Milford Sound. After a toilsome scramble of two days, his further progress was barred by almost perpendicular cliffs of some 5000 ft. in height, with snowy peaks rising several thousand feet higher. However, Dr Hector afterwards found his way by a rugged and circuitous path from Martin’s Bay (nearly forty miles north of Bligh Sound) to Queenstown, on Loch Wakatipu; and he now volunteered to attempt the same route again, with messages from myself to the Colonial Government, and from Commodore Stirling to the officer commanding H.M.S. ‘Virago’ at Wellington. Accordingly, on the night of our disaster, he sailed in the launch of the ‘Clio,’ which returned after an absence of five days, and reported that Dr Hector, with two seamen sent by the Commodore to attend him, had been safely landed on the 19th at Martin’s Bay, and had set out forthwith on their journey across the mountains. It may here be mentioned that a river named the Kaduku (or Hollyford), with a difficult bar at its mouth, runs into Martin’s Bay from Lake M‘Kerrow (or Kakapo), on the northern shore of which a few adventurous settlers from Otago have lately planted themselves.
“On the 27th February we were agreeably surprised by the arrival in Bligh Sound of a small steamer, the ‘Storm Bird,’ despatched to our assistance by the Colonial Government, with fifty sheep and other provisions for the officers and crew, so soon as Dr Hector had readied the nearest settlement and made our situation known by telegraph. Shortly afterwards the ‘Virago’ also arrived to the aid of the ‘Clio.’ Commodore Stirling then determined to take his ship to be docked at Sydney, so, on the morning of the 1st March, I left Bligh Sound in the ‘Storm Bird’ for Invercargill. After passing successively the entrances of George, Caswell, Charles, and Nancy Sounds, we anchored at sunset in the secure harbour of Deas Cove, about three miles from the entrance of Thomson Sound. On the following morning we started at daybreak, steamed up Thomson Sound, and returned to the open sea by Doubtful Inlet. After passing the entrance to Daggs Sound, we entered Breaksea Sound and regained the sea by Dusky Bay, in which Captain Cook remained for several weeks in 1773, and which he has described with his usual graphic accuracy. Afterwards we passed the entrances to Chalky and Preservation Inlets, and then proceeded to the Solander, at the west end of Foveaux Straits. It had been reported that some seamen had been cast away there from a recent wreck; but after a careful examination, no trace of any visitors could be found on these desolate rocks, so we bore up for Invercargill, where I landed on the 3rd March. Here began an official tour of great interest through the Middle Island, where I was received by the provincial authorities and by all classes of the community with a warmth of courtesy and hospitality for which I shall ever feel grateful.
“Although Milford Sound, at the extreme north of the thirteen inlets of the West Coast, surpasses the rest in stern grandeur and awful solitude, they all have many features in common. They are everywhere deep and narrow, subject to violent winds and strong tides and currents, and with few safe and sheltered anchorages. A tumbled sea of mountains looks down from above on the long swell of the southern ocean, breaking in clouds of snowy white foam on craggy cliffs rising abruptly from the shore, while glaciers and snowy peaks, slopes covered with noble forest trees, gloomy valleys and glittering waterfalls, all combine to present an ever varying succession of sublime pictures.
“The official tours of a Governor may be made practically useful, for they enable him to point out, from personal knowledge and in an authoritative shape, the resources and capabilities of the districts of the Colony over which he presides, and the advantages which they afford for immigration and for the advancement of capital. I have learned from several quarters that the published reports of my visits to all parts of New Zealand have awakened much interest in the mother country. Time will not permit me, on the present occasion, to discuss the future prospects of a settlement on the sounds of the West Coast, of which I have attempted a general description. It has been proposed to place some Norwegian emigrants on one or more of these fiords, but any scheme of this nature would require careful consideration. There are now no inhabitants whatsoever, either of Europeans or Maoris; the few families of natives seen in Dusky Bay in 1773, by Captain Cook, appear to have become extinct, and the tales related by the old whalers thirty years ago, concerning a tribe of wild men haunting these desolate shores, have probably as little foundation as the stories of flocks of moas having been seen, within living memory, stalking over the neighbouring mountains, nor can I trespass on your patience any longer with remarks upon the fauna and flora of this part of New Zealand. The supply of timber seems almost inexhaustible. Ducks and other wild fowl are numerous. Whales and seals abound, as well as excellent fish of various kinds. We were tolerably successful in shooting and fishing. I may enliven this part of my address by reading Dr Hector’s animated account of one of our seal hunts, in which, however, we were not fortunate. ‘On one occasion,’ he states, ‘the chase of five seals with the steam pinnace of the ‘Clio’ in the waters of Milford Sound affords a novel and exciting sport. The seals, startled by the snorting of the little high-pressure engine, instead of taking their usual dignified plunge from the rocks into deep water and so vanishing out of sight, went off at full speed diving and reappearing in order to get a glimpse of the strange monster that pursued them so closely. The utmost speed that we could make barely kept us up with them, until they began to show signs of distress, and one by one doubled and dived under the pinnace. Two of the seals held out for a run of three miles, and succeeded at length in getting into safety among the rocks on the opposite shore of the sound. From the experience of the run, the force at which seals can go through the water would seem to be not less than six or seven miles an hour.’ On the occasion to which Dr Hector here refers, we, unfortunately, had not our rifles with us, but on subsequent days, as was stated above, I shot several large seals, in addition to a number of wild ducks and other water fowl.”
Sir James Fergusson, Baronet, was the next Governor to visit the West Coast. He reached Hokitika overland from Christchurch on Tuesday, 2d December 1873. In addition to the procession on landing, there was a banquet and torchlight procession. Some feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction was occasioned through a want of forethought or pre-arrangement on His Excellency’s reaching town. After meeting the County Chairman (Mr H. L. Robinson) and others, and receiving and replying to an address of welcome from the hands of the Mayor (Mr William Todd) and the Borough Council, the coach conveying the Vice-Regal party did not proceed along the line of route intended. This marred the proceedings to some extent, but the matter was explained at the banquet. The reception otherwise was in every way worthy of the citizens of the newly constituted Province, a proclamation for the alteration of its constitution from that of a County to a Province having just been received from Wellington. Sir James Fergusson’s experience of the weather of the coast, which is so much the subject of satire with those who have regularly realised it, was such that his sensitiveness was excited as to his having to appear before the people covered with dust. His successor, the Marquis of Normanby, made his debut under very different circumstances.
On the 21st of February 1877, the Most Honourable the Marquis of Normanby reached Hokitika by sea. In addition to experiencing some of the difficulties of connection with the outer world under which settlement had been promoted on the West Coast, he had also an opportunity of realising the occasional vastness of the resources on which the prosperity of that settlement distinctly depends—the clouds. He saw in them the mainstay of the country, and in the condition in which they are most appreciated by the miners—in pluvial action, filling dams and water-races, and doing many good things which make the country worthy of being populated and governed. The Marquis was heartily greeted by a large concourse of peaceful, prosperous, and moist subjects of Her Majesty. It was by the Government steamer “Hinemoa” that the fourth Governor came hither. The record of the Governor’s experience began with the report from Wellington, “It is blowing hard here,” a statement which Westlanders were satirical enough to say was quite unnecessary to communicate. The record of his voyage ended with the intimation from Hokitika, “It is raining hard here”—in the estimation of Wellingtonians an equally unnecessary announcement. With the Governor were the Hon. Mr Bowen, Minister of Justice, Captain Maling, His Excellency’s Private Secretary, Mr La Patourel, Aide-de Camp, Mr G. S. Cooper, Under-Secretary for the Colony, and Mr Thomas Mackay, “guide, philosopher, and friend.” The order of the procession looked very well on paper the previous day, but it soon became a foregone conclusion that its formation could not be an accomplished fact, owing to the incessant downpour. The arrangement eventuated into a civic reception of His Excellency under the structure then known as the Transit Shed. Mr Jack, in his capacity of Mayor, in company with the members of the Borough Council, Harbour Board, and Friendly Societies, presented an address of welcome. Notwithstanding the weather, His Excellency utilised the afternoon by visiting the gaol, Lunatic Asylum, and the other public institutions. The chairman and members of the County Council, and the Chairman and members of the Arahura Road Board, were equally active with the civic authorities in preparing for the reception and conveyance of His Excellency to the extra-mural districts, but the execution of their arrangements-was necessarily made subject to the dictates of His Excellency and his superior, Jupiter Pluvius. The following day, the weather faired, and the programme of the day’s proceedings included four prominent events—an assemblage of school children, a levee, a visit to the volunteer encampment and rifle range at Arahura, and a citizens’ banquet in the Town Hall. The town illuminations, on His Excellency’s leaving the banquet room, were most creditable to the spirit of the illuminators, and to the skill of the artists in painting and gasfitting. The Governor was driven along the route where these illuminations were visible, and among much explosion of fireworks and loyal sentiment he ended the duties and pleasures of a day which has ever since been remembered with satisfaction by the inhabitants of Hokitika. On Friday, 23d February, His Excellency took his departure northwards, being escorted from the town boundary by the County Chairman, Mr M‘Whirter, and the other members of the Council. At Stafford, Goldsborough, and Kumara, the receptions met with were of the most hearty and spontaneous kind. In Kumara, the diggers, to the number of a thousand men, presented a fine sight. Main Street and Seddon Street were spanned with handsome arches and lines on which countless flags were hung. The Vice-Regal party, headed by Messrs Seddon and Houlahan, proceeded down the lead, and inspected the mining operations. Mr Houlahan’s characteristic speech at the banquet in proposing His Excellency’s health, and doing honour to a “rale live Markis,” will long be remembered by the early residents of Kumara. The Governor reached Greymouth the same evening, where he was most loyally and enthusiastically received. After visiting the coal mines and reviewing the other “lions,” he sailed from the Grey in the “Hinemoa” for Westport. During His Excellency’s stay in Hokitika he was the guest of the Hon. Mr Bonar, at Government House, and while he was in Greymouth he was the guest of the Mayor, Mr F. Hamilton, at his private house in Mackay Street.
On arriving at Westport, His Excellency was received by 1500 persons, including the Masons, Oddfellows, Foresters, Good Templars, and Rechabites in full regalia, members of the Borough and County Councils, and school children. Addresses were delivered and replied to, and the Governor and his party were escorted by a procession half a mile long to the Empire Hotel. A levee and ball followed. Next morning a visit was paid to Waimangaroa, where an address was presented by the coal mine lessees. In a marquee a collation was laid, and there were several toasts and speeches. A number of ladies were among the visitors. On leaving Westport the Governor took occasion to express his gratification at the cordial and homely welcome given him there and in every town he had visited on the coast.
